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Unearthing the roots of substance-abuse disorders

Family dinners, holiday celebrations, annual float trips, and heart-to-heart talks at the kitchen table with a loved one are all staples in many of our lives, unfortunately, so is substance-abuse. Alarming headlines and negative stereotypes cloud our understanding about what has evolved into a serious epidemic in the United States.

Substance-abuse disorders also impact the American workforce. Recent data from the Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index™ revealed that marijuana positivity has increased nearly 75% in the general U.S. workforce in oral fluid testing. Overall positivity in urine drug testing among the combined U.S. workforce in 2016 was 4.2%, a 5% relative increase over last year’s rate of 4%, and the highest annual positivity rate since 2004 (4.5%).

To help demystify substance-abuse disorders, we created a detailed white paper, An Exploration of Addiction, to help educate and increase awareness about the complexity of substance-abuse disorders. We discuss the life stages and circumstances most vulnerable to substance abuse and take a deeper look at:

What decades of research can tell us about the science behind substance-abuse and addiction